


Boundless Retail Opportunities

by Spectrum27



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mall AU, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectrum27/pseuds/Spectrum27
Summary: Based on Greyias' Mall AU, my smuggler and his friends have gone from smuggling to retailing. It's a tossup as to which is worse.





	Boundless Retail Opportunities

“Well, another day, another credit.” Prindrohi Candaren thought as he unlocked the security shutters for his pride and joy, Boundless Starparts. He’d set-up shop in a vacant space in the east wing of the Galactic Mall in Coruscant City. Since he’d left his hometown of Sludaan he'd bounced between short-term jobs to get enough funds to open his own store. About six months prior, another starship parts store had gone under and Prin took the inventory for a song.

"Hey, boss. What's on the checklist today?" Corso Riggs, Prin's assistant manager entered the store. "Got a shipment of CEC parts coming in around 1:00. Other than that, not much." Corso was from the run-down area of Ord Mantell, and had met Prin after attempting to stop a former friend of his named Skavak from robbing the store. Ever since, Skavak had repeatedly targeted their store and stolen items.

As the duo turned on the lights and began prepping the store for business, the Galactic Mall itself was slowly coming to life. After an hour or so, the mall opened its doors. Customers slowly filtered into the wide, tiled hallways.

At 10:30 Prin was doing clerical work behind the counter when a familiar face entered the store. Prin casually glanced at the upper-crust customer as she looked for a variety of items. "Hello, Prindrohi."

"Hey, Risha. How's your project going?" "It's progressing rather well. The speeder should be up and running by the end of the week." 

Risha was dressed in her uniform from the jewelry store across the hall, Huttsberg Diamonds. Prin had become quite familiar with her since starting here-- despite her snooty-sounding voice and admittedly beautiful appearance, she could handle the starship parts business better than he could at times, helping him pick better parts suppliers and fending off Skavak's shoplifting attempts. Hell, she often hung out with Prin and Corso on their lunch breaks in the food court.

“Hey, Miss Drayen.” Corso greeted her as he wheeled out a shipment of power cells for blaster cannons. Risha nodded and handed over her credit chip. Once the transaction went through, she took her litems and headed back across the hall to the jewelry store. Prin stared at her retreating form, before Corso tapped him on the shoulder. “Uh, boss?” “Oh, yeah, what is it?”

“Are you ever gonna ask Risha out?” Prin sighed at Corso’s blunt question. “No, not yet anyway. A girl like her probably wants money. All my credits are going to keep this store in this mall.” Corso snorted. “That’s an excuse and you know it. It wouldn’t take much to take her out. Sure she looks high-class and works at a jeweler, but if she’s more interested in starship and speeder parts, then she can’t be that rich.”

“Yeah? Well what about that time she set you up with that friend of hers, Beryl? If I remember correctly that date ended with her stealing your wallet.” Prin reminded him. At that Corso scowled and stalked off grumbling. Prin smirked a bit, before contemplating how he could ask her out, before some snooty rich guy landed her first. (Admittedly Risha had never been that forthcoming about her background, so he had no idea what her family was like.)

At 12:00, Prin and Corso went to lunch. The food court of the Galactic Mall was naturally quite busy and crammed with about a billion different eateries offering food from all across the galaxy-- and about 50 Biscuit Barons, since they were _ everywhere _ . “So what should we get to eat?” “I dunno, Corso. I’m feeling like sweet and liquidy.” Prin mused. “Jawa Juice?” Corso supplied. Prin nodded. “Yep, that’ll do.”

The duo approached the Jawa Juice, where a familiar Mon Calamarian face was behind the counter. “Hey, guys! What can I get for you?” Guss Tuno asked. Guss had previously been employed by Jedi Temple Candle and Gifts, but had gotten fired after an accident involving a new shipment of candles and a misplaced snowglobe. He’d landed at Jawa Juice, where he became acquaintances with Prin and Corso.

“Hey, Guss. Can I get two strawberry-kiwi smoothies please?” “Oh, and a couple four-cheese flatbreads!” A few minutes later, Prin and Corso were busy relaxing and eating, shooting the breeze with security officer Akaavi Spar. “So I told them, if you aren’t going to buy anything, then get out of Lucas’s before people start staring at your nude body.” Akaavi stated plain and simply as Prin and Corso just listened in shock at the bizarre story. “Alright then, Miss Spar. Well, hopefully no more naturalists will show up around here then.” Corso said in a detached tone.

An hour later, the duo were back at work, ringing up customers and keeping the store running. Prin was in the backroom organizing the new parts shipment when he heard a familiar growling noise. “Oh, hey Bow! Hang on, I’ll be out in a second!”

Prin emerged to find his best customer and part-time employee, Bowdaar the Wookiee, awaiting him at the front of the store. “What can I get you today?” As usual for a Wookiee, Bowdaar couldn’t speak Basic, but he found ways to work around this. In this case, handing a datapad to Prin with the item he needed displayed on-screen. “OK, you need a few new microvalves. What happened to the old ones?” He asked (Bowdaar was working on a project involving several older junkers).

Bow responded in Wookieespeak, which the datapad translated as “They got ruined.” “Well, thankfully these are so cheap. They’re over in aisle 4.” As Bowdaar walked off into the corner of the store, Corso came running in, a panicked look on his face. “I just saw Skavak’s beat-up speeder arrive in the parking lot.” Corso reported.

Prin’s eyes widened before he rushed to the silent alarm button. But before he could do so, Skavak himself strolled in, a sneer on his strangely-tattooed face. “Hello, you two. Don’t even think of setting off the alarm, I’ll be long gone. And you have your emergency blasters in the backroom, and of course I won’t let you get them.” He informed them, well aware of his usual robbery routine.

Corso and Prin both scowled. “Man, why can’t you either buy parts legitimately like everyone else, or go rob another store, like the Empire 1 Imports?!” Corso questioned.

“Because it’s fun and easy to rob you blind over and over again. For instance, I know exactly how to open the register without activating the anti-theft shock system.” Skavak said smugly. He promptly headed for the register and fiddled around with it; a few seconds later, the cash drawer sprung open and he promptly began rummaging through it for large-denomination coins and bills.

“Corso, make sure he can’t see Bowdaar, I have an idea.” Prin whispered. Corso scurried off to block Bowdaar from Skavak’s view. “So how’s your attempt to climb the underworld ladder going?” Prin asked Skavak as a way of buying time.

Fortunately, Skavak was more than happy to oblige. “Oh, just great. I’m now officially an agent of the local gang. I’m working for a very influential figure in the crime world. And he is in turn working for the most powerful boss around, the Voidwolf. I’m moving up in the world. But I’m still going to take time out of my busy schedule to torment you and your little lackey.” Skavak gloated.

“Speaking of, where did Riggs run off to anyway?” Skavak realized. He looked around, but just then, the security shutters slammed down! “What the?!” Skavak whirled back to Prin, who was smirking. “Yeah, you see I knew you couldn’t resist rambling on about how great you are, and we do have securicams now. So I had Corso head into the back to activate the shutters, call security, and get the recording of you explaining who you’re working for.” Prin summed up.

“I swear, I will strangle the life out of… you….” Skavak trailed off as Bowdaar emerged to stand behind Prin, glowering at the overconfident thief. “And another thing, Skavak. You had to time your robbery attempt when my best customer was in the store.” Bowdaar promptly clobbered Skavak on the head, causing the criminal to crumple to the floor, dropping his gun. Corso then ran out from the back. “Good work, boss.”

A few minutes later, Akaavi and a couple of police officers were there, questioning Prin and Corso and taking the unconscious Skavak into custody. The mall manager, Ms. Dodonna, was also there. “Thank the Force you three were able to stop this annoyance.” She told Prin and the others. “Yeah, we were hoping he’d try to rob us again now that we had securicams. I knew that he would overconfidently gloat and expose more of his crimes. It was a good thing that Bowdaar was there too-- prevented a possible shootout. That would’ve been messy.” Prin explained.

Dodonna smiled, and walked off to complete some police paperwork. Nearby, Akaavi was talking with Risha, who had, like many other mall workers, emerged from her store to see what the commotion was. “Prindrohi is an honorable sort, much like you, Miss Drayen.” Akaavi said. Risha smirked. “I always knew he was a good improviser, I just didn’t know it could go that far. He’s earned a little bit of my respect.”

“And if my instincts are correct, Prindrohi is nursing affection for you. He believes that you’re too unapproachable based on your social status.” Akaavi said casually. “Well, I look upper-crust, but I haven’t been that rich for some time. I do have a plan in mind. And based on his skills, I think I can enlist Prindrohi for assistance.” Risha whispered. “But what about his feelings?” At that, Risha’s expression grew neutral. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Prin, meanwhile, was finishing up the last of the paperwork regarding the Skavak incident. “Well, c’mon Corso, we gotta get back to the store, looks like we got a few new customers.”, as there were now quite a few patrons interested in what had transpired. It was just another day in the life of Boundless Starparts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @greyias for the inspiration for this AU. Considering I'm not only a retail geek but love the film Mallrats, which takes place at a mall for most of the day, it felt natural for me to write this.
> 
> Another Boundless chapter will arrive. Eventually.


End file.
